RE: Google Method of Finding Declination
Re Damia Soler's Sundial Location Calculator - what a great tool! One small point - if I put in a UK postcode for the address, the resulting satellite picture seems to be a little way (a mile or so?) away, whereas normally the location found by Google maps is more or less exactly correct (at least where the postcode covers a small area as in a town). Secondly, does anyone know how accurate (in the UK) the lat/long figures this technique gives are? How does the uncertainty relate to say a minute or a second of longitude or latitude? Does anyone have some clearly identifiable locations around the country with very accurately known positions on which one could check this? Andrew James PRI Limited, PRI House, Moorside Road Winchester, Hampshire SO23 7RX United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1962 840048 Fax: +44 (0) 1962 841046 www.pri.co.uk PRI Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 2199653 Measure - Inform - Empower This correspondence is confidential and is solely for the intended recipient(s).If you are not the intended recipient, you must not use, disclose, copy, distribute or retain this message or any part of it. If you are not the intended recipient please delete this correspondence from your system and notify the sender immediately. This message has been scanned for viruses by MailControl. --- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
Re: Google Method of Finding Declination
FW: Google Method of Finding DeclinationHi John, Thanks for publishing this technique. I would recommend your technique when it is important to get it right. If a customer wants a precisely crafted sundial, your technique is almost as good as being there and using Tony's wonderful declinometer. For more casual uses, I would recommend Damia Soler's web link. http://sundial.damia.net/ This now works like a charm. Click on two points on a Google Map to produce a line with text indicating the location with lat and long noted as well as the correctly calculated the wall declination. The result is now within a degree of what I had found with Google Earth methods. Google Maps is pretty good for resolution, although Goggle Earth gives 3 D effects. Results vary but around here the Google camera car has been taking ground level pictures so we can expect pretty good resolution in the future. I recently gave the Google camera car an appropriate salute as it passed. I have found Yahoo Maps to give somewhat better resolution but the web link is based on Google Maps. If the building is too small to give you a clear line, use the adjacent road as your baseline. Damia's web link also gives you the standard hour lines. If nothing else this is a good check for the professional design. Regards, Roger Bailey Walking Shadow Designs From: John Carmichael Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 7:38 PM To: 'Sundial List' Subject: FW: Google Method of Finding Declination Hi Walter (Hope you don't mind if I cc Sundial List) Ok- I'll try to describe it. Finding Wall Declination using Google Earth 1. Download and install the latest version of Google Earth which has clearer and better images. See: http://earth.google.com/ 2. Open GE and find the location. Zoom in or out to get the clearest view of the wall or roofline. Make sure North (the N on the compass) is straight up. 3. Click on File then Save then Save Image. An Explorer window appears. Give it a name and save it as a .jpg in your files. 4a. If you don't have a CAD program, then print the photo on a piece of paper. 4b. If you do have a CAD program (I use DeltaCAD), then import the photo into it. 5. Draw a line over the photo of the wall or the roof line above the wall that will have the sundial. 6. Draw a north-south line that intersects the wall or roof line. 6a. If using a paper print, measure the angle of declination (degrees East or West of South) of the wall or roof line, using a protractor. 6b. If using CAD, measure the angle of declination by using the angle dimension tool. Done! p.s. There is another Satellite image website that sometimes has better satellite images than Google Earth. It's called Bing Maps (formerly call Virtual Earth). See: http://www.bing.com/maps/?FORM=ZZLH8# Use it the same way as Google Earth. -Original Message- From: Walter Sanford [mailto:wsanf...@wsanford.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 2:35 PM To: John Carmichael Subject: Google Method Can you explain the Google method for finding declination? I can imagine how the process works. Question is, what are the exact steps YOU follow? I wrote to Jim Tallman; he sent a *long* reply I'm going to read right after posting this one. = Walter Sanford, Director Carl Sandburg Middle School Center for Sky Awareness 8428 Fort Hunt Road Sandburg Planetarium Alexandria, VA 22308 Fairfax County Public Schools Work: 703-799-6169 -6197 (fax) E-mail: wsanf...@wsanford.com Home: 703-765-9392 AMS Project ATMOSPHERE Atmospheric Education Resource Agent Water in the Earth System (WES) Resource Teacher SCSA, Geosystems, Camp T-Equity - URL: http://www.wsanford.com/ = --- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.374 / Virus Database: 270.12.90/2200 - Release Date: 06/24/09 12:49:00 --- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
RE: Google Method of Finding Declination
Hi Roger and all: This is the first time I've seen Damia Soler's Sundial Location Calculator webpage at http://sundial.damia.net/vertical/sundial.php?langcode=en/ .It's fantastic! I'll put this website at the top of my bookmarks. I nominate it as The Dialist's Tool of the Year! It combines the features of Google Earth with the features of a CAD program! How cool is that! And it gives you the latitude and longitude too. It's so easy to use a child could use it. It's just as accurate as my method I would guess, but even easier. You can use just part of it to get a wall's declination, or you can use all of its features to get a design for his sundial. Congratulations to Damia Soler for coming up with this great dialing tool. I love it! John Carmichael From: Roger Bailey [mailto:rtbai...@telus.net] Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 8:40 PM To: John Carmichael; 'Sundial List' Subject: Re: Google Method of Finding Declination Hi John, Thanks for publishing this technique. I would recommend your technique when it is important to get it right. If a customer wants a precisely crafted sundial, your technique is almost as good as being there and using Tony's wonderful declinometer. For more casual uses, I would recommend Damia Soler's web link. http://sundial.damia.net/ http://sundial.damia.net/ This now works like a charm. Click on two points on a Google Map to produce a line with text indicating the location with lat and long noted as well as the correctly calculated the wall declination. The result is now within a degree of what I had found with Google Earth methods. Google Maps is pretty good for resolution, although Goggle Earth gives 3 D effects. Results vary but around here the Google camera car has been taking ground level pictures so we can expect pretty good resolution in the future. I recently gave the Google camera car an appropriate salute as it passed. I have found Yahoo Maps to give somewhat better resolution but the web link is based on Google Maps. If the building is too small to give you a clear line, use the adjacent road as your baseline. Damia's web link also gives you the standard hour lines. If nothing else this is a good check for the professional design. Regards, Roger Bailey Walking Shadow Designs From: John mailto:jlcarmich...@comcast.net Carmichael Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 7:38 PM To: 'Sundial mailto:sund...@rrz.uni-koeln.de List' Subject: FW: Google Method of Finding Declination Hi Walter (Hope you don't mind if I cc Sundial List) Ok- I'll try to describe it. Finding Wall Declination using Google Earth 1. Download and install the latest version of Google Earth which has clearer and better images. See: http://earth.google.com/ http://earth.google.com/ 2. Open GE and find the location. Zoom in or out to get the clearest view of the wall or roofline. Make sure North (the N on the compass) is straight up. 3. Click on File then Save then Save Image. An Explorer window appears. Give it a name and save it as a .jpg in your files. 4a. If you don't have a CAD program, then print the photo on a piece of paper. 4b. If you do have a CAD program (I use DeltaCAD), then import the photo into it. 5. Draw a line over the photo of the wall or the roof line above the wall that will have the sundial. 6. Draw a north-south line that intersects the wall or roof line. 6a. If using a paper print, measure the angle of declination (degrees East or West of South) of the wall or roof line, using a protractor. 6b. If using CAD, measure the angle of declination by using the angle dimension tool. Done! p.s. There is another Satellite image website that sometimes has better satellite images than Google Earth. It's called Bing Maps (formerly call Virtual Earth). See: http://www.bing.com/maps/?FORM=ZZLH8 http://www.bing.com/maps/?FORM=ZZLH8# Use it the same way as Google Earth. -Original Message- From: Walter Sanford [mailto:wsanf...@wsanford.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 2:35 PM To: John Carmichael Subject: Google Method Can you explain the Google method for finding declination? I can imagine how the process works. Question is, what are the exact steps YOU follow? I wrote to Jim Tallman; he sent a *long* reply I'm going to read right after posting this one. = Walter Sanford, Director Carl Sandburg Middle School Center for Sky Awareness 8428 Fort Hunt Road Sandburg Planetarium Alexandria, VA 22308 Fairfax County Public Schools Work: 703-799-6169 -6197 (fax) E-mail: wsanf...@wsanford.com Home: 703-765-9392 AMS Project ATMOSPHERE Atmospheric Education Resource Agent Water in the Earth System (WES) Resource Teacher SCSA, Geosystems, Camp T-Equity - URL: http://www.wsanford.com
